WHO WAS CHARLES FORT?
“Orthodox” Forteans (an oxymoron, by any means) will probably take me to task for the inadequacy of the following answer. They are welcome to contribute to this FAQ, which at least I went to the effort to create. 😉 Charles Hoy Fort was a 19th-century eccentric who received a sizeable inheritance from his family. He used this minor fortune to travel through the major metropolitan libraries of his day. He would read through the various scientific journals of the day, looking for ‘damned data’ about which the learned authorities were at pains to explain. Such things would include reports of falls of strange things from the sky, strange things seen in the heavens, and strange disappearances. Fort found the pathetic efforts of astronomers, meteorologists, and other scientists to deny and explain away these weird occurences inadequate, and often mocked them for their pompous attempts to deny that there were things they didn’t understand.
